9:02 PM,
Jul. 11, 2013

Hamilton police and fire department medics prepare to transport a rescued fisherman to a local hospital on Thursday.

Written by

Janice Morse
jmorse@enquirer.com

By the time searchers found a fisherman who'd been lost for three days, he was so weak that he was unable to reach his cellphone nearby, said Hamilton Police Capt. Craig Bucheit.

"It was only about 20 feet away from him, but he was so incapacitated, he couldn't get to it," Bucheit said. "Luckily, it still had power."

And because of that, the phone was still sending out its GPS location signal, leading searchers to a remote area of Combs Park where they found John Earl Watts on Thursday. Watts, 48, was last seen Monday, when he told his family he had gone fishing. ...